Hypertext Now: Beyond the Portal: "Many have feared that the future of the Web will recapitulate the history of broadcasting: that it will soon consolidate into a handful of dominant sites eclipsing all the others. However, it is likely that the centrifugal force of links will balance the pull of centralization."
even better than the real thing: democracy. "We were upstairs at this point, and we looked down at him and asked, in a loud voice -- 'Why are you using a public library to promote a junk food product?'"
sometimes you have to make test posts. don't ask why.
Halcyon Days of Broadcast Ad Model Fade by Christopher Locke: "Mass media are "mass" because they have for so long served the core requirement of mass production: to move excess inventory. The more product such advertising could move, the more profit the company made, so obviously, the bigger the audience the better. Mass media are mass because they're huge. And the way such hugeness is achieved is by appealing to lowest-common-denominator tastes in terms of programming content. The content is merely bait to entice the audience. The real show, the real message, is the advertising. Therefore advertisers want to lower the common denominator so that they can get everyone possible into the audience." [via personalization newswire]
I missed this Big Panda Comics plea for micropayments when it happened, but caught it on Doc Searls Weblog. According to Doc he's been successful. Not sure how successful...but it sounds good. It's refreshing to hear someone speak the truth like this.
oh yeah, one more: make the damn punch-card system of voting illegal.
oh, and the software that runs any type of vote-counting machines should be open source. every part of an election should be open to public examination.
Dinah has some great actions that we should take as a country based on lessons learned from this historic election debacle. I agree with all of them, especially proportional electoral votes. (proportional representation in general provides for a stronger republic through greater representation of diverse ideas.) I would also add instant run-off voting to her list.
It's like this:
There's this bird
And you catch it in your hands
You feel its softness, warmth, its heart
rapidly beating
But if you keep holding it it's no
longer a bird
So you open your hands
(Catch it and let it go
again and again)
There's this bird
And you catch it in your hands
You feel its softness, warmth, its heart
rapidly beating
But if you keep holding it it's no
longer a bird
So you open your hands
(Catch it and let it go
again and again)
- Wendy Lewis